Modular service payroll system

ABSTRACT

A payroll system and method for determining compensation of employees for work during a pay period on one or more projects. The invention utilizes minimum employee compensation amount and the unit rate compensation amount for each employee, and compares the difference between these amounts for each employee with the outstanding debit account amount for that employee, and then determines the employee&#39;s pay for the pay period and whether the employee&#39;s debit account amount should be adjusted. Additional modules are provided for another employer business operations.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention

[0002] This invention relates to a software system for employers'determination of compensation levels for employees.

[0003] 2. Description of the Related Art

[0004] In many fields, such as the construction industry, wherecontractors utilize field employees to provide a wide variety ofcustomized services to various customers, it is often difficult todetermine a level of compensation for the field employees that isclosely correlated with the particular services performed by eachemployee, is sufficiently rewarding to efficient, productive employeesto maximize employee retention and maximize efficiency, is correlated toand within the employer's costs for providing the services, and isappropriately adjusted to take account of over-time worked by theemployee to meet government requirements. Paying employees strictly on aper hour basis tends to reward employees who take a long time to performa service rather than rewarding efficiency, and payment that is nottailored to the value of the particular service or for extra servicestends to result in lower employee performance levels.

[0005] Attempts have been made to overcome these limitations. In somefields, contractors make payments on a per hour basis, plus additionalpayment for extra services, such as in return for a customer lead(commonly known as a “spiff”) and for over-time. Some companies relyheavily on bonus cash payouts to motivate workers who are otherwise paidrelatively low salaries. Other attempts based somewhat on a traditionalpiece-work system must be carefully monitored so that the amount paidmeets minimum wage and overtime requirements. Piece-work rewards volumeof work and not quality of work.

[0006] The performance-based pay system of Tom McCart (ContractingBusiness, March 2001, pages 52-5) utilizes production goals determinedfrom sales projections and geographic area information, along withtechnician self-tracking to measure and compare technician's performanceand other employee motivational techniques, to determine pay raises.

[0007] In order to be sure of their costs of providing particularservices and to aid in determination of how much to charge customers,some industries such as the plumbing industry and the HVAC industry havepromulgated detailed flat-pricing databases containing thousands ofestimated costs of labor and materials for particular projects. Thus, aplumbing and HVAC contractor can consult the databases to obtain anestimated cost for a particular repair or installation having a specificassembly, with information generally provided based on the material andlabor unit cost. The contractor can use this cost estimate and make adetermination of what to pay the employees, assuming that the work willall be done at a standard non-overtime rate; however, the employer mustbe careful to monitor the actual amount of time that the employees workto be sure that the minimum wage is paid and that appropriate overtimepay is paid. This system does not provide any mechanism for rewardingemployees who are more efficient and do better work than averageemployees. This system can work with any trade's material and labordatabase.

[0008] It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a systemfor employee compensation that revolves around the employee performingservice work and being subsequently compensated with a premium based onperformance. Performance as used here includes work performedexpediently and properly the first time. With the system of theinvention, high performing employees can routinely make 20-30% more thanother employees, while at the same time, the employers' profits areincreased.

[0009] Other objects and advantages will be more fully apparent from thefollowing disclosure and appended claims.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0010] The invention herein is a payroll system and method fordetermining compensation of employees for work during a pay period onany of one or more projects. The invention utilizes a base employeecompensation amount and a unit rate compensation amount for eachemployee, and compares the difference between these amounts for eachemployee with the outstanding debit account amount for that employee,and then determines the employee's pay for the pay period and whetherthe employee's debit account amount should be adjusted. Additionaloptional modules are provided in the invention that may be used forother employer business operations.

[0011] Other objects and features of the inventions will be more fullyapparent from the following disclosure and appended claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0012]FIG. 1 is a flow-chart the main steps of the method of theinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION AND PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS THEREOF

[0013] The present invention provides a modular service payroll softwaresystem for determining compensation of employees for work during a payperiod on one or more projects and the method of determining employeecompensation for services rendered by the employee.

[0014] As used herein, an “employee” may be any worker who is to be paidfor his or her services, and may include workers working on acontractual basis. The term “employee” may also be one or more employeeswho together complete a project. Allocation of pay to individualemployees when there is more than one employee on a project iscalculated by the employee and/or the employees agree on a percentagesplit. The system of the invention can track multiple employees on asingle project.

[0015] As used herein, the term “project” means a particular goal to befinished by an employee or a group of employees. For example, in theplumbing industry, an example of a project might be the plumbingservices required for a shower unit on the second floor of an apartment.

[0016] The “unit rate compensation amount” is a product of databaseunits times a company factor times an employee factor, each of whichterms is defined below.

[0017] The term “unit” or “database unit” is an assigned value,preferably from a database, for performance of a specific task, such asmotor replacement or air-conditioner system charge. For each project,the system of the invention provides a standard unit that is used in theinvention to calculate what an employee will be paid for completion ofthe project or projects. For each project, the system of the inventiontracks and uses the amount of actual labor the employee spends on theproject and the unit from the trade database as a starting point in thedetermination of unit rate compensation amount.

[0018] A “company factor” (also called “comp rate”) is the factor that aparticular company uses to multiply times the number of database unitsworked by each employee as part of calculation of the “unit ratecompensation amount” (see below). This company factor may be adjustedperiodically by the company to reflect the company's overall efficiencyand productivity. An example of calculation of the company factor for aparticular company is set forth in Example 8.

[0019] Finally, to determine the “unit rate compensation amount” foreach employee, an employee factor is used to adjust for such things asemployee status and extra responsibilities or productivity. Thisemployee factor essentially is used to modify the company factor forparticular employees, based on longevity, managerial duties the employeemay perform, training or other accomplishments which separate theemployee from his peers. Thus, for new employees, the employee factormay be less than one, effectively reducing the new employee's unit ratecompensation amount, while for a managerial employee with specialduties, the employee factor would likely be greater than one.

[0020] The term “compensation base rate” or “base rate” means theminimum amount an employee is paid per hour using the invention, whichis always at least as much as required by the law(s) applicable to thejurisdiction of employment. For example, a junior level employee mighthave a base rate of $10.00 per hour, while a more senior person's baserate might be $15.00 per hour. Under current law, employees are paidtime-and-a-half for overtime, which is over 40 hours per week in moststates. The invention herein can be modified for any type of overtimerequirement or other regulatory factors that might affect how much anemployee is required to be paid. The “minimum employee compensationamount” is thus the employee's base rate times the number of hoursworked by that employee during a particular pay period.

[0021] The term “extra time” relates to time used to calculateremuneration to be added to the employee's pay for work performed by theemployee for which the customer is not billed, whether the employee ispaid under the unit rate compensation amount calculation or the minimumemployee compensation amount calculation. If the extra time for anemployee is expected and normal in the course of operating the business,such as training, equipment maintenance, cleaning, taking inventory andthe like, payment for the extra time is added as a bonus payment to theemployee. If the extra time is inexcusable extra time, under mostcompany's systems, the employee's performance bonus pay that mightotherwise be received is likely to be negatively affected.

[0022] Thus, the payroll and accounting system of the invention fordetermining compensation of employees for work during a pay period onone or more projects comprises:

[0023] a) an interface to a database comprising information on units ofestimated labor costs for completing each of said projects;

[0024] b) means of determining a company factor, and an employee factorfor each employee;

[0025] c) an interface for entering project information for each projecton which employees work, including units, employee information,information on projects completed by each employee, hours worked on eachproject by each employee, overtime information for each employee andcompensation base rate for each employee;

[0026] d) one or more programs, which calculate minimum employeecompensation amount based on each employee's compensation base ratetimes the number of hours worked by the employee on the project, andwhich calculate the unit rate compensation amount for each projectundertaken by each employee based on the units of estimated labor costsfor each said project, times the company and employee factors;

[0027] e) means for determining whether the employee has an outstandingdebit account amount for previous pay periods; and

[0028] f) means for utilizing the minimum employee compensation amount,the unit rate compensation amount for each employee, and the outstandingdebit account amount for that employee to determine each employee's payfor the pay period and to determine whether each employee's debitaccount amount should be adjusted.

[0029] The method of the invention of determining employee compensationfor services rendered by the employee as shown in FIG. 1, comprises:

[0030] a) providing an interface to an accessible database for storingdata on units of estimated labor costs for providing services on each ofone or more projects;

[0031] b) providing a compensation base rate for each employee;

[0032] c) determining a minimum employee compensation amount for eachproject undertaken by each employee based on the employee's compensationbase rate times the number of hours worked by the employee on theproject;

[0033] d) determining a unit rate compensation amount for each projectundertaken by each employee utilizing units allocated to each project,and factors specific for the employee's employer company and theemployee;

[0034] e) determining whether each employee has an outstanding debitaccount amount related to previous work for which the employee was paidan amount greater than the employee would have earned if he was paid theunit rate compensation amount;

[0035] f) subtracting the minimum employee compensation amount from theunit rate compensation amount to yield a bonus amount; and

[0036] g) if the bonus amount is positive and greater than the debitaccount amount, paying the employee the unit rate compensation amountminus the debit account amount, but paying the employee no lower thanthe minimum employee compensation amount; or

[0037] h) if the bonus amount is positive and less than the debitaccount amount, paying the employee the minimum employee compensationamount, and adjusting the debit account amount for the employee to beequal to the outstanding debit account amount minus the bonus amount; or

[0038] i) if the bonus amount is positive and equal to the debit accountamount, paying the employee the minimum employee compensation amount,and adjusting the debit account amount for the employee to be zero; or

[0039] j) if the bonus amount equals zero, paying the employee theminimum employee compensation amount; or

[0040] k) if the bonus amount is negative, paying the employee theminimum employee compensation amount and adjusting the debit accountamount by adding the bonus amount to the debit account amount.

[0041] In addition, modules may be added to the system, such as forproduction of standard reports produced for particular employees,services provided, and customers, to track earned time off by eachemployee, to track gasoline usage of particular employees or jobs, toprovide a tool account from which employees may earn the ability topurchase tools, for payrolls for production of paychecks, fordetermining, withholding and paying payroll taxes, and any requiredfees; for determining and paying sales tax due to governmentalauthorities; and to enable tracking (dispatch) of completion ofparticular employee services to enable timely assignment of employees tonew projects.

[0042] In the system of the invention as described in more detail below,each employee has an hourly base rate of payment, is paid overtime(currently required at 1.5×the base rate for over 40 hours per week),and has a “debit account amount” (essentially a negative amount “in thebank”) to take account of debit account amounts as discussed herein, thelatter of which may affect the employee's pay if the employee works lessefficiently than the unit rate standard amounts.

[0043] Under the system of the invention, the employee is always paid atleast his base rate for the non-overtime work week (e.g., 40 hours bycurrent law) plus time-and-a-half for overtime for the week undercurrent regulations. If the employee is less efficient than the standardrate so that calculation of the employee's base rate times the number ofhours actually worked on a particular project exceeds the unit ratecompensation amount for that project, the employee is still paid at thebase rate plus time-and-a-half for any overtime for that pay-period, buthis “debit account amount”, which is simply a running negative balancethat keeps track of the employee's performance, is increased by theexcess over the unit rate compensation amount that is paid to theemployee for completion of a particular project. Except for pay owed anemployee for work during the current pay period, there is never apositive balance in the employee's debit account of amounts owed theemployee for past work; in other words, the employee is paid all amountsowed him under the system of the invention during the regular pay periodduring which the employee would normally be paid. The employee neverreceives a paycheck for less than his base-amount plus time-and-a-half.He also does not have an actual amount taken from his base ratecalculated wages for this debit account amount. The debit account amountis only subtracted from any excess calculated amount (over the base ratetimes hours worked plus time-and-a-half) for future pay-periods, if theemployee works more efficiently than the unit rate (completes a projectmore rapidly so that, except for debit account amount calculations, hewould be paid more than his base rate); or unless and until the employeehas some other bonus due to him, such as a commission or spiffs, fromwhich bonus, past debit account amounts could be deducted. For eachpay-period when the employee is due a bonus or payment that is in excessof the base rate plus time-and-a-half for overtime, such as forespecially efficient work that week, the employee will have the amountof any debit account amount that is accrued from previous pay-periods,deducted from that pay-period's bonus or extra payment, with the companyhaving the option to defer or eliminate the negative balance. The amountpaid to the employee for a pay-period will thus always be at least thebase rate of that employee times the number of hours worked (plusovertime for extra hours worked), which is the minimum employeecompensation amount, and will be no more than the unit rate compensationamount for the projects completed plus with any bonus payments, reducedby the amount of any accrued debit account amount that the employee mayhave.

[0044] As shown specifically in the Examples, if the employee works a40-hour week (no overtime), employee remuneration is calculated asfollows: the number of units worked times the company and employeefactors is used, but in no case is the employee paid less than theemployee's particular base rate times the number of hours actuallyworked (Example 1). If the employee completes a project during those 40hours that has a greater unit rate compensation amount than he would bepaid using a standard hourly wage, and if the employee does not have adebit account amount, the employee will be paid more than the minimumemployee compensation amount.

[0045] Each employee is paid any excess over his base rate in hisregular (e.g., weekly) pay-check, such as being paid the entire $600unit rate compensation amount, even though he worked only 40 hours at abase rate of $10/hour to complete the $600-project. If, however, theemployee uses the 40-hour week and only completes a $300-project, hewill be paid the $400 minimum employee compensation amount, and hisdebit account amount will be adjusted by $100 to reflect the fact thathis performance was sub-standard. That balance in the debit account willstay negative, but will not affect the employee's pay-check until theemployee has a positive week (completes a project at an effective ratethat would yield a higher per-hour salary for a particular project,based on the unit rate for that project). If a full deduction of thedebit account amount would lower the employee's earnings for that payperiod below his minimum employee compensation amount, the fulldeduction will not be made and only a portion of that amount will besubtracted from his pay-check, so that the employee still receives hisminimum employee compensation amount, and will continue to have abalance in his debit account amount.

[0046] The debit account amount for each employee is calculated andcontinually updated each pay-period. The balance carried over betweenpay periods is only for debit account amounts that can be applied tofuture pay periods when the employee earns bonus amounts. For each payperiod, the employee is paid all bonus amounts owed for that pay periodminus any carried over debit account amounts, so that no bonus amountsare carried over.

[0047] The invention herein also provides for paid time off (PTO), whichmay be calculated on the basis of the number of hours worked by theemployee, on the amount paid to the employee or in any other manner. Therate of accrual of PTO may be based on either all the hours actuallyworked or on the gross amount paid to the employee (a floating rate ofaccumulated PTO per week that will vary from week to week) or a set-rateof a certain amount of PTO per week an employee has worked 40 hours. Ineither case, the employee will earn paid time off each pay period ascalculated by establishing the number of annual hours that the companywishes to offer as vacation time and/or sick time, divided by the numberof pay periods per year. For each period worked, the PTO will bereported as due the employee. An employee that has two weeks' vacation(80 hours) and five sick days (40 hours) would accrue 2.31 hours perweek.

[0048] The invention further provides a method of employee managementfor provision of services on the projects completed, comprising:

[0049] a) utilizing an invoice containing information on the projectscompleted;

[0050] b) keeping a time sheet for each employee comprising informationon time spent on each project by the employee;

[0051] c) determining a minimum employee compensation amount for eachproject undertaken by each employee based on multiplying a base rate forthe employee times the number of hours worked by the employee on theproject;

[0052] d) utilizing information on each employee and each employee'sinvoices and time sheets, together with information on units allocatedto each project, a company factor, and an employee factor for eachemployee to determine a unit rate compensation amount for each employee;

[0053] e) determining whether the employee has an outstanding debitaccount amount for previous pay periods; and

[0054] f) determining the difference between the minimum employeecompensation amount and the unit rate compensation amount for eachemployee, and comparing said difference for each employee with theoutstanding debit account amount for that employee, to determine theemployee's pay for the pay period and to determine whether theemployee's debit account amount should be adjusted.

[0055] Typically an invoice, also termed a job work order, for examplein the plumbing industry, includes customer information (name, address,phone, equipment, and other data), information on the reported troublefor which service is required, the employee's diagnosis and the flatrate repair costs, the source from which the price came, the acceptanceor decline from the customer, travel time, vehicle mileage, the saleamount, the method of payment, customer signature, employee name and/ornumber, sales tax, actual job starting and completion times, amount ofregular time and overtime, and any service agreement information.Service ticket control numbers, mandated environmental refrigerantinformation, equipment readings and terms and conditions may also beincluded. Clearly, the type of information on the job work order wouldvary with industry and with individual companies.

[0056] The employee timesheet would typically include job numbers,invoice or work order numbers, the amount of sales quoted by theemployee, and the amount of sales made by the employee.

[0057] Information on each employee that is typically entered into thesystem includes employee name, address, social security number, employeenumber, employee base rate, employee factor (as discussed herein),marital status, dependants, additional tax information on withholding,paid-time off accrued and taken and vacation status.

[0058] No matter how the employee's compensation is calculated forprojects completed for which a customer can be billed, the employee mayalso be paid for extra time or other bonuses at the option of theemployer company.

[0059] This method of the invention may also include producing standardreports for particular employees, services provided and customers,tracking earned time off by each employee based on actual hours workedby the employee or on gross pay paid to the employee, tracking gasolineusage by employees, providing a tool account from which employees mayearn credit toward tool purchase or other job enhancement features,providing a payroll module for producing paychecks, determining,withholding and paying payroll taxes, and any required fees, providing asales tax module for determining and paying sales tax due togovernmental authorities, providing a dispatch module to enable trackingof completion of particular employee services to enable timelyassignment of employees to new projects, providing benchmarks to gaugecompany performance against the company's own past business performanceand performance by other similar companies, and/or providingavailability of additional compensation including commissions, bonusesand spiff.

[0060] The features of the present invention will be more clearlyunderstood by reference to the following examples, which are not to beconstrued as limiting the invention.

EXAMPLE 1 Unit Rate Compensation Amount of $600.00—No Overtime

[0061] For a project for which the unit rate compensation amount is $600for a particular employee, an employee, designated Employee A (in thisand the following examples, it is assumed that the employee factor is1), whose base rate is $10/hour and who takes 40 hours to complete theproject, would normally be paid $400 if paid strictly on an hourlybasis, the minimum compensation rate amount. Under the invention,however, if Employee A does not have a debit account amount, his unitrate compensation amount will be $600.00, which is an effective $15.00per hour ($600 divided by 40 hours). If Employee A had completed thework in only 30 hours, his effective rate of pay would be $20.00 perhour, double his base rate.

EXAMPLE 2 Unit Rate Compensation Amount of $600.00—With Overtime

[0062] For a project having a unit rate of $600, if Employee B who has abase rate of $10/hour takes 45 hours to complete the work, he would bepaid $475 if only paid at his hourly rate (the minimum employeecompensation amount), whereas under the invention, he would be paid $600for that period using the unit rate, providing that there he had nonegative debit account amount. His effective base rate under theinvention for the week would be $12.63 for 40 hours, plus 5 hours ofovertime at time-and-a-half for effectively 47½ hours. The formula forcalculating hourly rate and pay can be adjusted for changes inapplicable labor laws and other regulatory requirements.

EXAMPLE 3 Unit Rate Compensation Amount of $300.00—No Overtime

[0063] For a project having a unit rate of $300, if an employee,designated Employee C, whose base rate is $10/hour takes 40 hours tocomplete the project, he is still paid $400, on a strictly hourly basis,the minimum compensation rate amount. Because this exceeds the unit ratecompensation amount, he will not receive any additional amounts for thatproject as did the employee in Example 1. Furthermore, the excess ($100)paid to the employee over the minimum compensation rate amount of $300will be reflected in a $100 debit account amount.

EXAMPLE 4 Unit Rate Compensation Amount of $600.00—No Overtime—EmployeeWith Debit Account Amount

[0064] If after Employee C completes the project of Example 3, he workson a new project with a unit rate compensation amount of $600 andcompletes the new project in 40 hours, his minimum compensation rateamount for the new project will be $400 (40 hours×$10/hr). If Employee Cdid not have a debit account amount, he would receive the entire $600for the new project; however, since he has a $100 debit account amount,$100 will be deducted from his pay, and he will receive only $500 forthe new project. Alternatively, if Employee C had completed the newproject in 60 hours, spread over 2 weeks so there would be no overtime,the employee would be paid $600, at his base rate, and he would stillhave a $100 debit account amount (which would be applied against laterweek's projects when the employee worked at a faster rate than the ratefactored into the unit rate).

EXAMPLE 5 Paid Time Off—Hourly Basis

[0065] An employee works 40 hours in a week and earns a number of hoursto be accrued toward vacation and sick time. If a company paid two weeks(80 hours) vacation and one week (40 hours) sick time per year, for each40 hours worked, the employee earns 2.31 hours PTO per week ((80+40)divided by 2080 (work hours per year).

EXAMPLE 6 Paid Time Off—Gross Pay Basis

[0066] An employee earns $600 for pay as computed by the system of theinvention for 40 hours worked, yielding an effective rate of $15.00 perhour. Dividing $600 by 15 yields 40 hours of worked time to accrue anumber of hours as designated by vacation and sick pay. Should anemployee earn $600 for an actual 35 hours worked, but 40 hours ofproduction (the employee will accrue 40 hours of worked time for use tocompute the paid time off hours.

EXAMPLE 7 Determination of Company's Adjusted Sales Amount

[0067] A typical worksheet that may be used to determine the companyfactor, with an example of actual calculations is described herein. Thecompany first lists the number of company employees, e.g., 10, andmultiplies this times the average billable hours per week per technician(e.g., 25) times the number of weeks per year (52) to yield thecompany's total annual productive hours (e.g., 13,000) in this example.To determine the company's annual labor service revenue, the annualproductive hours are multiplied by the average length of a service callin hours (e.g., 1 hour) times the average amount the company bills forservice calls (e.g., $100), yielding $1,300,000 revenue in the example.To this amount is added amount of the annual parts sales, $650,000 inthe example, resulting in a total adjusted service revenue of $1,950,000for the example. This revenue is reduced by the product of theanticipated gross margin (e.g., 50%) times the annual parts sales, toyield a unit rate adjusted sales amount of $1,625,000 in this example.Utilizing the unit rate adjusted sales amount, the company can determinethe percentage of sales that is profit, overhead, expenses, employeecosts, vacations and holidays, non-productive time, overtime andcall-back expense as discussed below in Example 8, and thence determinethe company factor.

EXAMPLE 8 Determination of Company Factor or Company-wide Comp Rate

[0068] In the preferred way of determining the company factor, thepercentage allocated by the company to each of standard expensecategories, an example of which follows, is subtracted from 100%,resulting in a percentage by which each unit of work performed by thecompany's employees is multiplied to determine unit rate compensationfor the employees. Multiplication of each percentage of the varioustypes of expenses given below times the hourly service charge yieldsinformation on how each hour's receipts are to be allocated.

[0069] Thus, for a typical company, the percent desired profit for aparticular service department might be 10%; the percent overhead, suchas rent, utilities, office expenses and office salaries, professionalfees and the like might be 40%; the percent truck and tool expense suchas leases, depreciation, insurance, supplies, repairs, 8%; the employeecost (payroll and benefit, taxes) 5%; employees' vacation and holidays1%; employee non-productive or “extra” time during which an employee ispaid but which cannot be charged to a particular customer, 5%; serviceovertime (total of all service department overtime divided by departmentsales), 5%; and call back expense (cost of services performed but whichcannot be charged to a customer, such as for shoddy work or employeeoversights), 1%, for a total of 75%. The company would then be able touse the remaining 25% as a company factor, or $25 if the company laborsell rate per hour is $100. In some instances, depending on applicableregulations and company policies, such categories as service overtimeand call back expense may be included in the Company Factor (e.g.,should the computation yield that the labor contribution is 25%, theovertime costs comprise 5% and the callbacks comprise 1%, and the laborsell rate is $100, 25% times $100 yields a $25 labor, $5 overtime and $1callback, for a total of a $31.00 Comp Rate). This company factor wouldbe expect to change with time, e.g., as a company became more or lessprofitable, had changes in overhead, and the like.

[0070] While the invention has been described with reference to specificembodiments, it will be appreciated that numerous variations,modifications, and embodiments are possible, and accordingly, all suchvariations, modifications, and embodiments are to be regarded as beingwithin the spirit and scope of the invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A payroll system for determining compensation ofemployees for work during a pay period on one or more projects, saidsystem comprising: a) an interface to a database comprising: informationon units of estimated labor costs for completing each of said projects;b) means of determining a company factor, and an employee factor foreach employee; c) an interface for entering project information for eachproject on which employees work, including units, employee information,information on projects completed by each employee, hours worked on eachproject by each employee, overtime information for each employee andcompensation base rate for each employee; d) one or more programs, whichcalculate minimum employee compensation amount based on each employee'scompensation base rate times the number hours worked by the employee onthe project, and calculate the unit rate compensation amount for eachproject undertaken by each employee based on the units of estimatedlabor costs for each said project times company and employee factors; e)means for determining whether the employee has an outstanding debitaccount amount for previous pay periods; and f) means for utilizing theminimum employee compensation amount, the unit rate compensation amountfor each employee, and the outstanding debit account amount for thatemployee to determine each employee's pay for the pay period and todetermine whether each employee's debit account amount should beadjusted.
 2. The system according to claim 1, further comprising amodule for production of standard reports produced for particularemployees, services provided, and customers.
 3. The system according toclaim 1, further comprising a module to track earned time off by eachemployee based on actual hours worked by the employee or on gross paypaid to the employee.
 4. The system according to claim 1, furthercomprising a module to track gasoline usage by employees.
 5. The systemaccording to claim 1, further comprising a tool account from whichemployees may earn credit toward tool purchase or other job enhancementfeatures.
 6. The system according to claim 1, further comprising apayroll module for producing paychecks, determining, withholding andpaying payroll taxes, and any required fees.
 7. The system according toclaim 1, further comprising a sales tax module for determining andpaying sales tax due to governmental authorities.
 8. The systemaccording to claim 1, further comprising a dispatch module to enabletracking of completion of particular employee services to enable timelyassignment of employees to new projects.
 9. The system according toclaim 1, further comprising benchmarks to gauge company performanceagainst the company's own past business performance and performance byother similar companies.
 10. The system according to claim 1, furthercomprising availability of additional compensation includingcommissions, bonuses and spiff.
 11. A method of determining employeecompensation for services rendered by the employee, comprising: a)providing an interface to an accessible database for storing data onunits of estimated labor costs for providing services on each of one ormore projects; b) providing a compensation base rate for each employee;c) determining a minimum employee compensation amount for each projectundertaken by each employee based on the employee's compensation baserate times the number of hours worked by the employee on the project; d)determining a unit rate compensation amount for each project undertakenby each employee utilizing units allocated to each project, and factorsspecific for the employee's employer company and to the employee; e)determining whether each employee has an outstanding debit accountamount related to previous work for which the employee was paid anamount greater than the employee would have earned if the employee waspaid the unit rate compensation amount; f) subtracting the minimumemployee compensation amount from the unit rate compensation amount toyield a bonus amount; and g) if the bonus amount is positive and greaterthan the debit account amount, paying the employee the unit ratecompensation amount minus the debit account amount, but paying theemployee no lower than the minimum employee compensation amount; or h)if the bonus amount is positive and less than the debit account amount,paying the employee the minimum employee compensation amount, andadjusting the debit account amount for the employee to be equal to theoutstanding debit account amount minus the bonus amount; or i) if thebonus amount is positive and equal to the debit account amount, payingthe employee the minimum employee compensation amount, and adjusting thedebit account amount for the employee to be zero; or j) if the bonusamount equals zero, paying the employee the minimum employeecompensation amount; or k) if the bonus amount is negative, paying theemployee the minimum employee compensation amount and adjusting thedebit account amount by adding the bonus amount to the debit accountamount.
 12. The method of claim 11, further comprising adjusting theunit rate compensation amount upward to take account of extra servicesprovided by the employee in addition to services required to completeprojects.
 13. The method of claim 11, wherein the determination of theunit rate compensation amount takes into account time worked forovertime to be paid at time-and-a-half.
 14. The method according toclaim 11, further comprising producing standard reports for particularemployees, services provided and customers.
 15. The method according toclaim 10, further comprising tracking earned time off by each employeebased on actual hours worked by the employee or on gross pay paid to theemployee.
 16. The method according to claim 11, further comprisingtracking gasoline usage by employees.
 17. The method according to claim11, further comprising providing a tool account from which employees mayearn credit toward tool purchase or other job enhancement features. 18.The method according to claim 11, further comprising providing a payrollmodule for producing paychecks, determining, withholding and payingpayroll taxes, and any required fees.
 19. The method according to claim11, further comprising providing a sales tax module for determining andpaying sales tax due to governmental authorities.
 20. The methodaccording to claim 11, further comprising providing a dispatch module toenable tracking of completion of particular employee services to enabletimely assignment of employees to new projects.
 21. The method accordingto claim 11, further comprising providing benchmarks to gauge companyperformance against the company's own past business performance andperformance by other similar companies
 22. The method according to claim11, further comprising providing availability of additional compensationincluding commissions, bonuses and spiff.
 23. A method of employeemanagement for providing of services on a project for a customer,comprising: a) utilizing an invoice containing information on theprojects completed; b) keeping a time sheet for each employee comprisinginformation on time spent on each project by the employee; c)determining a minimum employee compensation amount for each projectundertaken by each employee based on multiplying a base rate for theemployee times the number of hours worked by the employee on theproject; d) utilizing information on each employee and each employee'sinvoices and time sheets, together with information on units allocatedto each project, a company factor, and an employee factor for eachemployee to determine a unit rate compensation amount for each employee;e) determining whether the employee has an outstanding debit accountamount for previous pay periods; and f) determining the differencebetween the minimum employee compensation amount and the unit ratecompensation amount for each employee, and comparing said difference foreach employee with the outstanding debit account amount for thatemployee, to determine the employee's pay for the pay period and todetermine whether the employee's debit account amount should beadjusted.
 24. The method according to claim 23, further comprisingproducing standard reports for particular employees, services providedand customers.
 25. The method according to claim 23, further comprisingtracking earned time off by each employee based on actual hours workedby the employee or on gross pay paid to the employee.
 26. The methodaccording to claim 23, further comprising tracking gasoline usage byemployees.
 27. The method according to claim 23, further comprisingproviding a tool account from which employees may earn credit towardtool purchase or other job enhancement features.
 28. The methodaccording to claim 23, further comprising providing a payroll module forproducing paychecks, determining, withholding and paying payroll taxes,and any required fees.
 29. The method according to claim 23, furthercomprising providing a sales tax module for determining and paying salestax due to governmental authorities.
 30. The method according to claim23, further comprising providing a dispatch module to enable tracking ofcompletion of particular employee services to enable timely assignmentof employees to new projects.
 31. The method according to claim 23,further comprising providing benchmarks to gauge company performanceagainst the company's own past business performance and performance byother similar companies.
 32. The method according to claim 23, furthercomprising providing availability of additional compensation includingcommissions, bonuses and spiff.